Boomerang

a wooden missile now peculiar to the natives of Australia. It is made of some hard wood, and is usually about thirty inches in length and three inches in width. One surface is flat and the other is rounded. In shape it is curved like a crescent or scimiter. The native seizes his boomerang by one end and hurls it with great force and skill. There are several sorts of these instruments. Some are heavy and are used in war. Others are used in the chase of the kangaroo and in hunting birds, taking the place of the Indian bow and arrow. Other boomerangs again are used for amusement. The Australian native is skillful in throwing the boomerang, being able to kill game at a distance of two hundred paces. The curves executed by a baseball twirled from the hand of an expert pitcher are sufficiently surprising, but are far excelled by the right, left, up, and down curves of the boomerang. One sort may be thrown in such a way that it will execute curves in the air at a distance and return to the thrower. It may be made to circle a tree or house. One of the Australians at the Omaha Exposition threw his boomerang to a distance of ninety yards before it began its return flight, during which it rose to a height of forty-seven yards and described five complete circles, coming back and falling within two feet of the thrower.

On the theory that a careless thrower flinging his boomerang out in front of him is likely to be struck by the return of his own weapon, the term has passed into the newspaper reporter's vocabulary as synonymous for an ill advised argument or political charge which may be turned against the speaker or his party.

An ancient inscription represents an Egyptian noble standing in a boat and hurling a boomerang or "throw stick" at water fowl just rising from a clump of papyrus in the Nile. An Egyptian boomerang is preserved in the British Museum. The Moqui Indians of Arizona and New Mexico used a similar instrument in hunting rabbits. Of late a toy boomerang has been sold for lawn amusement.